Wrong Way: Go Back

San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway was planned and construction was started during the highway-building frenzy of the 1950’s. But when San Franciscans got a look at the huge concrete-and-steel structure blocking the “city by the bay” from its bay, they stopped it in mid-course along its planned waterfront route to a connection with the Golden Gate Bridge.

In 1986 a public referendum sponsored by the then Mayor, narrowly failed to force demolition. But the controversy continued; and for freeway foes the 1989 earthquake — greatly damaging the city elsewhere, and causing the collapse of a similar freeway in Oakland and of a span of the Bay Bridge — ironically was the spur to victory.

The mammoth demolition project — about a mile and a quarter of double-decked freeway and its ramps has been torn down — cost only about $3.25 million. One good reason is that the contractor recycled all the steel and concrete. Reinforcing rods and construction beams were melted down; concrete was crushed into small chunks between the size of marbles and baseballs and used elsewhere for fill.

It was replaced with a seven-mile long stretch of waterfront parks, plazas, and public access to the piers 

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